Animalia

Living right up against the greenbelt gives us plenty of chances to see wildlife in action. Sometimes that interaction is a little too close for comfort.

Luckily the coyotes are too shy to venture close, but the snakes are a little more adventurous.

My first encounter with a snake was when I went to the side of the house to turn on the water hose. I felt something "crawl" across my foot and when I looked down to see what it was, a snake was slithering across my foot. He was small, but still a snake.

My neighbor says the animals must like us because they are always in our yard. I think it's just because we are outside a lot so we notice them more.

Most the snakes that we have seen in the yard have been unvenomous, but we did manage to see a small rattler. He took up residence in the crack of where our sidewalk meets the front porch. Needless to say, I always shake the bushes before I weed the flower beds and look down before I step out the door. :-)

Then next snake incident happened last night. Summer likes to pull up the water meter covers and rescue the toads that are trapped in there. Well, last night her and the little boy next door were on "frog duty". Summer came running in telling me she thought she had seen a frog sticking it's head out of the water cover so she reached down, stuck her hand in the hole and pulled up the cover. There lay a snake in the water meter hole! The head sticking out of the hole was not that of a toad!

This morning we took Toby out to see if the snake was still in the water meter. I guess the snake figured out that toads get stuck in there too....makes them easy lunch for a snake. Luckily the snake was not a rattler. Here is a pic of him:



The next animal experience is not quite as stressful. This morning I took Brandi out for her usual morning pee break. I have a small chain that I tie her to sometimes when she wants to stay outside for awhile or if I just need to keep her "in place" for a small amount of time. I don't want her to run around the neighborhood and get lost and sometimes I don't feel like sitting out there with her.

Anyway, I chained her and went inside to make me a cup of coffee. After I made my coffee I went outside to bring her back in. When I got to her she seemed very preoccupied with something in the grass. I could only see that she was playing with something that was moving in the grass. My first thought was that it was a snake!

I shooed her away from it and upon further observation saw that it was a very small bunny. What I saw next was so sad. His whole back skin was slashed open. I don't know if Brandi did it trying to play with him or something else had already tried to get it before we came out. Brandi's fingernails aren't all that sharp and it looked like the rabbits skin had been slashed.



Anyway, as I was inspecting the bunny I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye. I discoverd that one of our regular backyard rabbit visitors had decided that up against our garage was a perfect place to give birth. There were two more baby bunnies in the burrow.



I picked up the wounded bunny and brought him inside and made him a small bed. I felt so sorry for him. I got some info and found out there was a Wildlife Rescue on the way to Toby's work.

Toby dropped the wounded bunny off so he is on his way to wellness. :-)

Now I am just hoping the other two bunnies will make it. Luckily we found them before Toby cut the grass again. Hopefully, if there was something else trying to get to them it won't come back again for a second try.